Reflecting revered assumptions and long-standing paradigms, The Principles of War are a list of tenets enshrined since 1949 in the Army?s Field Manual 3-0 ?Operations? and more recently in other service and joint doctrines. These foundations ? Mass, Maneuver, Unity of Command, and the rest ? have stood largely pat for a half-century. That reflects their enduring utility, yet is prima facie evidence of a need to seriously re-examine them, particularly as conflicts in the ancient battlefields of Mesopotamia and Afghanistan wind down.
The post-Cold War era has generated new vulnerabilities and new forms of adversaries and combat applications. A decade of combat and complex operations has pulled up the roots of strategic thought and operational habits framed in response to a monolithic threat. That threat no longer exists, but it is imprinted into the U.S. military culture. The challenge is adapting to new demands, new threats and an evolving character of conflict. We must discard what is no longer relevant and reinforce everything that is immutable or enduring.
The following is offered for consideration by the joint war-fighting community: a new principle for the list, and indeed one to be placed atop the rest:
?Understanding: Craft strategy and operations upon a detailed understanding of the nature of military conflict and the specific context (cultural, social, political and geographic) in which military force is to be introduced and applied.
STRATEGY, ANTHROPOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY
Strategist Bernard Brodie once observed that ?good strategy presumes good anthropology and good sociology.? Fundamentally, war involves an iterative competition between peoples whose behavior patterns will be a result of a complex combination of factors. Our national security community has experts who monitor and study the strategic and military culture of adversarial states and assess an opponent?s military capabilities. During the Cold War, we created a cadre of experts in Russian history, language and culture. After the Cold War, we lost that expertise. We became what Gen. Anthony Zinni, the former Central Command commander, calls ?order of battle oriented? ? focused on quantifying a known opponent and laying out his capabilities in neat templates. Then-Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn?s 2010 critique of intelligence operations in Afghanistan reflects the consequences of this mentality.
We need to gain a deep and nuanced understanding of any conflict we are about to embark on and acquire as thorough a grasp of the nature of the adversary as possible. This includes becoming well-informed about the culture of the adversarial social and political systems.
This will help us in the future, due to the nature of what Harvard?s Samuel Huntington calls ?fault line? wars. These are the sorts of culturally intensive, ethnic or religiously divisive conflicts that occur between different cultures or civilizations. Such wars are protracted, violent and highly contagious. Unfortunately, these are exactly the kinds of conflicts we will be involved in for the next few decades (although not the only ones). Fault-line wars place a premium on an in-depth knowledge base of the other component of a nation?s strategic culture ? its societal culture. This is not a new thought, as Michael Howard stressed many years ago, ?Wars are not tactical exercises writ large. They are ? conflicts of societies, and they can be fully understood only if one understands the nature of the society fighting them. The roots of victory or defeat often have to be sought far from the battlefield, in political, social, or economic factors.?
Nor is this news to those familiar with the Marine Corps? classic ?Small Wars Manual,? which notes, ?The campaign plan and strategy must be adapted to the character of the people encountered.?
It is impossible for either policymakers or the military to succeed without an intimate appreciation of the local culture, and one can see this in America?s past interventions. Our lack of understanding of both the nature of the Vietnamese civil war and the weaknesses of the South Vietnamese government was instrumental to our debacle there. Likewise, our misunderstanding of the ethnic divisions in Lebanon, where our support for the Christian-dominated government risked our Marines and sailors in Beirut. Likewise, the American intervention in Somalia in 1992-93 was undermined by a limited understanding of the clan framework in that impoverished country.
The same problems worked against our efforts in Iraq for a long time. We have made progress at the operational and tactical levels over the past decade, and need to assess and institutionalize the frameworks, educational base and organizational improvements to preserve and increase the ability of American forces to think in terms of culture and see things from the perspective of others.
One can see the need for cultural intelligence and understanding in almost every phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Numerous stories and anecdotes have emerged about the pervasiveness of the effects of culture and the additive complexity it brought to the battle space.
?We are absolutely newcomers to this environment,? said one young officer. ?It is so foreign to us. You couldn?t pick a place in the world that would be more foreign to most Americans than Iraq.?
?The complexity of their culture has been overwhelming,? said another.
Others express surprise at the importance of religion: ?It was nothing I was prepared for.?
Efforts to instill some grasp of culture in professional military education programs and pre-deployment training programs were ultimately made. Additionally, initiatives like the Human Terrain Team were undertaken. The results of these efforts are mixed, per Flynn?s negative assessment a few years ago. It is clear that we have made progress but less clear that we have locked in the right changes or that we have yet recognized best practices to retain despite coming budget cuts.
PREPARING FUTURE WARRIORS
What is perfectly clear is the need to master foreign cultures and embrace a deeper level of understanding, if strategic and operational effectiveness matters at all. This is true at the summit of policymaking in Washington as well as in the dusty markets of Marjah or Kandahar.
?What will matter to the military forces of the United States in the 21st century,? notes American historian Williamson Murray, ?is how well American leaders at all levels understand their opponents: their history, their culture, their political framework, their religion, and even their languages.?
It should be clear by this point that understanding stands primus inter pares when it comes to the principles of war. Without a deep understanding of the nature of war and the societies involved, defining an achievable objective or end state is an exercise in delusion. Without a deep grasp of history and war, it is impossible to design a campaign for an offensive or to retain the initiative after the first clash of arms. Good planning requires branches and alternatives, not a fixed path?
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